The Blue Highways Journal chronicles the travels and thoughts of UNC School of Media and Journalism adjunct professor Jock Lauterer, as he travels his home state and the world observing media usage and society, with a special emphasis on local media, or “community journalism.”

A former community newspaper founding editor-publisher, Lauterer is the author of “Community Journalism, Relentlessly Local,” UNC Press, 3rd. ed. 2006, with translations in Mandarin, Rumanian and Korean.

With apologies to author William Least Heat Moon, this journal takes its name from the classic book that celebrates life off the interstates, off the beaten paths, along the smaller two-lane roads which on traditional ink-on-paper maps used to be indicated by the color blue.

From 2001-2017, Lauterer took his Johnny Appleseed Summer Community Journalism Roadshow (free on-site workshops) to small newspapers from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Outer Banks, as we say in North Carolina: “From Murphy to Manteo.”  In those 17 years, Lauterer conducted workshops at 190 community newspapers across the Old North State. Accounts of those workshops can be found in the Blue Highway Journal archives.